Guardian Angel
by Agent Malkere
Summary: "Have you ever read A Christmas Carol, Pat Jameson? Well, this is something like that." Gov. Jameson is given an unusual shot at redemption. The catch is that she has to help the 5-0 escape the mess she left them in from beyond the grave.


_**Guardian Angel **_

_By Agent Malkere _

**Disclaimer: I would love to own Hawaii Five-0. I would love to own some of the actors on Hawaii Five-0. Sadly, none of them are for sale for a reasonable price on Ebay. **

_A/N: This is sort of a sequel to my oneshot, 'Regrets,' and while I recommend reading that first (it's not all that long), it really isn't necessary to understand this story. _

Chapter 1

Governor Pat Jameson had never really formed any expectations about what would happen to her when she died, but she supposed she must have come to at least a few subconscious conclusions after accompanying her mother and father to church every Sunday as a little girl. Perhaps some notions of Heaven and Hell had settled at the back of her mind only to later be forgotten about. But despite her lack of expectations, she certainly hadn't expected this.

One moment Governor Jameson was hovering near the ceiling of what had been her office looking down at Wo Fat still holding his gun and Steve crumpled on the floor and what had up until just recently been her body with two messy holes through its heart which blood still oozed from. And then she hadn't been there anymore. She'd been Here. There had been no fan fair or strange feeling or even half a second of in between-ness. She'd simply been there and then she'd been Here.

"Here" was hard to describe. Mostly because it was a place the living mind wasn't meant to experience and, therefore, people had never had the opportunity or reason to create proper words to describe it. It was like the impression of the way every color of the rainbow feels and the remembered scent of autumn rain. And for some reason, it reminded Governor Jameson of a waiting room.

She drifted in the Here, absently wondering what was meant to happen next. The thought of "where" precisely she was didn't bother her overly. "Where" was more a concern of the living, and she couldn't really place herself in that category anymore. If she'd still been alive, she'd have thought that the whole experience was rather odd, but she wasn't, so she didn't. She was actually more worried about Steve and the rest of his team – the rest of the Five-0. And the part of her that was still Pat Jameson, the aspiring politician and idealist, was ashamed of what she had done, what she had become, in the name of the good of Hawaii.

"_Good. Regret is a good start. It means you aren't an entirely lost cause."_

Governor Jameson started. She had thought that she was alone. But now that she knew that something else was there she could feel the deep hum of another presence at the back of her awareness.

_God?_ she wondered.

"_Well, I suppose that's one way of putting it, though none of us are really a big fan of names – they tend to cause nothing but problems."_

_Am I going to Hell?_ the Governor wondered, thinking of all the things she'd done with the best intentions but had ended up doing more harm than good. She thought of the Five-0.

"_If you desperately want to, I suppose I could arrange something, but really, none of us are big fans of eternal damnation. It's right up there along with names, you see. More trouble than it's actually worth usually." _

_Then what's to become of me?_ In her mind, Governor Jameson pictured Steve sprawled in a heap on the floor of her office again. He'd only wanted to do the right thing. He'd done a better job of it than she ever had. _What would happen to him now? _

"_That's really up to you." _

She didn't understand.

"_Pat Jameson, you have always tried to be a good person, but you made bad decisions which lead to worse decisions. And then, right near the end there, you made one very good decision. You allowed for the creation of the Hawaii Five-0."_ The presence paused for a moment as if collecting its thoughts. _"You allowed four people, who otherwise never would have worked together, to create a family. And that is a very special thing indeed. All four were broken in some way, and together they were learning to heal. A family created not by blood but by choice is one of the most precious gifts a person can receive in a lifetime." _

_But I'm dead. What does the Five-0 have to do with it?_

"_Precisely, Pat Jameson. You are dead. And your death has ripped apart this little family that you inadvertently created. Have you ever heard of dying of a broken heart? On their own, none of them will survive." _

And suddenly Governor Pat Jameson saw and knew.

She saw Chin Ho Kelly slouched at a desk at the HPD, all the life gone out of his eyes and all alone as he worked late into the night with nothing but his work keeping him going. He had nothing to go home to. His family had never truly accepted him back, and though his fellow officers now knew the truth of the story behind the stolen two hundred thousand dollars, they couldn't bring themselves to trust him completely. And then, years later, when he was finally forced to retire from the police force, he drowned in a boating accident. He probably could have survived if he'd tried, but what was the point? He was all alone and had been for years. Chin had lost his will to live a long time ago.

She saw Kono Kalakaua lying on a prison operating table. She'd been shanked by one of her fellow inmates. Cops weren't welcome in prison. The surgeon was desperately trying to stop the bleeding into her lungs. Her sentence was almost over, in just a few weeks she'd be out. Even if her career in law enforcement was ruined, she'd still be free in just a few weeks. Her heart flat lined. Panels were pressed to her chest and her body convulsed with electricity, but her heart refused to start again. The last thing that passed through Kono's unconscious mind before she slipped away far beyond any doctor's reach was a memory of celebrating the close of a successful case with her teammates. And then the once promising young officer was gone.

She saw Detective Danny Williams held upright only by his seatbelt as the hole in his chest stained the front of his button up shirt red. His Camaro lay crumpled like carelessly discarded tinfoil in a ditch on the side of the road. A spider's web of cracks radiated out from the bullet hole in the windscreen. He'd been following a lead, a good lead, during his spare time, and he'd been confident that he'd finally found the evidence that would get his partner acquitted. But it wasn't to be. Someone had tipped off Wo Fat and it was decided that Detective Williams was becoming even more of a nuisance than his partner had been. By the time the paramedics arrived, all they could do was pull out a body bag. They were far, far too late. And somewhere in New Jersey a woman and a girl cried softly while a newborn baby slept because Danno really was never coming home.

And she saw Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett slumped against the white wall of his solitary confinement cell. Two years ago after Danny and then Kono had died, he'd been declared to be a danger to both himself and others and removed from the prison's general population. He'd given up trying to appeal his life sentence. Wo Fat had set him up too well. He was trapped with no way out. Besides, he hadn't been able to do anything to save Kono and Danny, just like he hadn't been able to do anything to save his father from that maniac, Hesse. Maybe, in the end, he deserved this. It was his fault that they'd been dragged together, and it was his fault that they'd all subsequently been ripped apart again. He might not have actually killed his friends with his own two hands, but he might as well have. When Steve finally did die nearly ten years later, it took the guards three full hours to notice he was dead. The coroner was able to find no cause of death. It was almost as if Steve had simply willed his heart to stop beating.

Governor Jameson would have cried if she'd still had eyes and tear ducts to do it with.

_What was that? _

"_That was the future. Or possibly the present. Time is relative – it can get a little confusing, even for us. But as time stands, Pat Jameson, what you have seen will happen." _

_But why? Why are you showing me this?_

"_Because nothing is ever set in stone, and even stones are eventually worn away by the waves. Have you ever read _A Christmas Carol_, Pat Jameson?" _She had. _"Well, this is something like that. You are being given a chance to right the wrongs you committed in life. For want of a better term, you are to be something like a guardian angel to these four people. Think of this as your… second chance." _

_But _how_ can I help them? I'm dead! _

"_You were a politician, Pat Jameson. Do what you do best – talk." _

There was the impression of a smile like the sweet, lingering aftertaste of sunshine, and then Governor Pat Jameson was no longer Here but standing next to Steve McGarrett who was only just starting to recover from the effects of the stun gun. She used the term "standing" very loosely as her only claim to having feet or even legs was a transparent, hazy imprint of what she had once looked like while she was still alive – almost as though her spirit had been pressed into that shape for so long that it simply continued to hold it out of habit.

Steve hauled himself unsteadily to his feet, staring at the gun that had been placed in his hand in confusion. Then the HPD came barging in with Chin at the lead, took one look at Steve with the gun in his hand and the Governor's dead, bleeding body slumped in her chair and came to the immediate, logical conclusion. Never mind that NO ONE ever caught a Navy SEAL this easily or that if Steve really had been intending to kill her, he would at least have used a silencer.

The gun was quickly dropped from Steve's dazed hands as he stared at the weapon Chin had trained on him. One of the officers was checking the Governor's inert body for signs of life. Governor Jameson could have saved him the time if she'd known how. The look of shock, horror, and grief that passed over Steve's face when the officer announced solemnly that she was dead made her ache a little. In spite of all that she had done, Steve hadn't really wanted her dead. Maybe he had wanted her to go to prison for the rest of her life but not dead. He was in handcuffs before he could even blink and stutter out a protest.

How? How was she supposed to help with this? Wo Fat was meticulously thorough in all aspects. He barely made any mistakes.

Her gaze flitted around her former office in desperate search of inspiration. It settled on Steve's phone still lying on her desk, forgotten. She'd touched it with her bare hands. And maybe someone could recover the verbal confession she'd deleted – Chin was terribly good with computers. Governor Jameson breezed over quickly to the officer still standing next to her body as the others hustled Steve outside.

"That's not the Governor's phone. It doesn't belong here. It needs to be bagged as evidence." If Governor Jameson had had any breath to hold, she would have held it, waiting anxiously to see what would happen. The presence had said to talk. It wasn't like anyone could see her.

The police officer stared speculatively at the phone for a few moments and then shrugged.

"Maybe he had help," he muttered. He pulled a folded up evidence bag out of his pocket, grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk, and carefully placed the cell phone into the plastic bag and zipped it shut. Satisfied, Governor Jameson hurried out through the closed door after Chin and Steve.

_A/N: Okay, I need a bit of help. I have lots of ideas about how to get Steve out of this mess, but I'm drawing a complete blank on how to help Kono! Does anybody have any thoughts or suggestions? They would be greatly appreciated! _

_Thanks for reading! _


End file.
